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Campaign Cash Low, Blago May Tap Taxpayers to Cover Legal Tab

Posted by Brian Baxter

A little more than a year ago, ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich had $2.8 million in campaign funds available to pay the legal costs
associated with defending himself against federal corruption charges.
Today, the Chicago Sun-Times reports, despite a judge capping defense lawyers' fees in the case at $110 per hour, Blagojevich has just $1.4 million left. And, the Sun-Times reports, if the newly minted reality TV star's campaign cash runs out, taxpayers will get stuck paying a portion of his legal bills.

Despite the cap on hourly rates, defense lawyers told the
Sun-Times that the chances Blagojevich wouldn't need to tap public funds leading up to
his planned trial this summer were virtually nil.

"Zero," Ronald Safer, a former federal
prosecutor and current managing partner of Schiff Hardin, told the Sun-Times
when asked if Blagojevich's $1.4 million in funds would last through his trial.
"It won't cover costs," he said. "They will go to public
funds."

Safer and Schiff Hardin know firsthand the amount of
legal work involved in preparing for a case against the "A-Team" from the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago run by Patrick Fitzgerald. The firm
advised the Office of the Illinois Governor in its cooperation with federal
prosecutors investigating Blagojevich and his former chief of staff, John
Harris, who pled guilty last July and is now cooperating with the government.

Blagojevich's campaign fund has so far made payments to
six lawyers and 23 consultants and experts, reports the Sun-Times, citing
numbers obtained from the federal clerk's office for the Northern District of
Illinois. Robert Blagojevich, the ex-governor's brother who is facing
related federal charges, is paying his own lawyer, Michael Ettinger from Palos
Heights, Ill.-based Ettinger, Besbekos & Schroeder.

Sorosky told the Sun-Times that working for $110 an hour
has been a sacrifice for all of Blagojevich's lawyers. "All our
secretaries and landlords want to be paid," he said. "$110 an hour
doesn't go very far. Our goal is not to have that [public money]. Whether we
can attain it, I don't know."

With the hours for lawyers and other staff likely
ratcheting up in the prelude to trial, Sam Adam, Jr., told the Sun-Times that
he didn't think the public would need to pay anywhere near the $500,000 in
defense costs estimated to be left over after Blagojevich's campaign funds run
out.